'Well, I should think so. After all, you got to wait a while . . .'
'They mustn't let her.' He couldn't bear to think of Rosemary alone. Mrs. Violette might be hired to stay, but Mrs. Violette was so remote and cool. . . . Paul Town-send would be kind, but he couldn't be with her. There was nobody, he thought in panic— Yes. Yes there was! Rosemary had no people, but he had a person. He had a sister.
'Could you send a telegram?' he asked abruptly. 'I guess I could see to it for you, or the nurse . . .' 'You do it. To Miss Ethel Gibson.' He gave her the address. 'Are you writing it down? Send this. 'Don't worry but car accident puts me in hospital. Rosemary O.K. but we need you. Can you possibly come.' ' 'Love?' the girl asked, scribbling busily. 'Love, Ken.' 'Twenty words.'
'Never mind. Please send it. Will you do that for me? I don't know where there is any money . . .'
'Til see about it,' she soothed. 'They can charge it on your bill. Now, do you feel better? Now will you tell me the answers to all this stuff?' So he told her the answers.
'O.K.,' she said at last. 'I guess I got the whole story of your life. Now, don't worry, Mr. Gibson, I'll surely send the telegram.'
'You're very good . . .'
'So long.' She smiled. She liked him. He was kinda cute. Didn't look to be fifty-five, either. With the kind of skin he had—fair, and stuck to his cheekbones. A woman would have had to have her face lifted already. And him married only five weeks to his first wife. She thought it was cute, and a little bit amusing. 'Don't worry so much about your bride,' she said affectionately.
'I'll try not,' he promised. But he had received the news of her amusement and thought he would not open himself for the amusement of strangers again.
When she had gone, he thought drunkenly: Story of my life. She hadn't got any of it. . . . Then his whole life's story went by him in a rush, and his heart throbbed hard for the disappointment and the postponement.
But he took hold of himself and called up patience. He would heal, painfully, in time. The pain was nothing. It
could be endured. He was not reconciled to the time it would take, but he would endeavor to be.
If only Rosemary had not been set back too much! If only Ethel—good reliable sister Ethel—if she could come and keep . . . keep his house! He felt sure she would respond as he himself would have responded, of course, to such a telegram. Ethel might even fly. His sister, Ethel, was not as far away from him in time as was Rosemary, upstairs. Ethel would come and take care and, in time, all would be well again.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gibson saw that the man on his right lay stupidly inert with a tube running in a disgusting way through one nostril. The man on his right had his ear upon the pillow, under which was a magic disk that poured out a soap opera. The ward was full of men all waiting as best they could . . . and most in pain. Some of them might be in love, for all he knew.
Mr. Gibson lay remembering words, for words were good to help keep off the pain—that brute and wordless thing —and to pass the time.
... an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth's
Unknown . . .
Unknown . . .
Unknown . . .
He seemed to sleep.
Later in that shapeless day they brought him a wire:
FLYING SOONEST. ETHEL.
Mr. Gibson sighed so deeply that it made his chest ache.
'And I almost forgot. Your wife sends love,' the nurse said brightly.
'Does she?'
'She was pretty anxious to know how you were. Let me squinch this pillow over. Is that more comfortable?'
'I am comforted,' he said quaintly. 'Can you send her my love?'
'We sure can,' the nurse said merrily. 'I'll put it on the grapevine, right away.'
People are good, fought Mr. Gibson, weak with satisfaction. People are really awfully good. Good nurse. Good sister Ethel. This misery would pass.
Chapter VII
'GOOD TO come!' he said to her, the next morning. 'So very good to come. So glad to see you.'
'Think nothing of it, old dear,' said Ethel, standing in her old familiar way, with the effect of being on both feet instead of settling her weight on one and using the other for balance, as most do. Ethel was a woman of some bulk. Although she wasn't fat, her waist was solid, her legs sturdy, her shoulders wide. She was wearing a tweedy suit of severe cut and a tailored blouse, but her short gray-threaded hair was uncovered and her square ringless hands were ungloved.
'Pretty state of affairs this is,' she said in her hearty voice. She had bright brown eyes in a face that would launch no ships. (Ethel looked a good deal like their father had, he realized suddenly. Now that she was forty-
